Ed and Martha

Over spring break, I lead a dozen Hamline student on a Habitat for Humanity trip to Brunswick, Georgia. Over the course of four days, we put up trusses, three walls, and hurricane straps on a house for Ms. Alberta Lockwood. Ms. Alberta was a spry, elderly woman who stopped by the construction site daily to give us all a hug.

In the evening, Mr. Hicks, the executive director of Glynn County HFH, would take us to the homes of residents on the islands across the causeway for dinner. Our hosts the first evening were Ed and Martha.

During dinner, I sat at a card table in the front sitting room with Martha and the wife of the island's Presbyterian minister. The minister's wife kept prodding Martha to talk about herself. Modestly, Martha talked about being a five-time cancer survivor. She talked about how she met Ed. "I would joke that he was from wrong side of the tracks and he would say, 'That may be true, but I run around with the guys who own the trains.'" Martha talked about how her husband had started off selling peanuts at baseball games and how in college he played with members of the Kingston Trio.

With some more encouragement from the minister's wife, Martha spoke about her work at a maximum security women's prison in Georgia. A few years back, Martha convinced the governor to all Martha and her friends to throw a Christmas party for the inmates. Martha raises $15,000 every summer for the event and uses the money to pay for food, extra guards, and at least 1,000 bags each containing a Bible, comb, brushes, soap, lotion, and anything else Martha can think of.

The entertainment is cheap, Martha said, because she just makes Ed play.

Martha said she could relate to the women in the prison. She told me about her struggles with drug and alcohol abuse and reflected, "I could just have easily ended up in there with them."

Later on, Ed played for all of us in the living room on his four-string guitar. "They don't make these anymore," he said. We sang along to Johnny Cash and the hymns I hummed though I had forgotten the words.